


Heal Twice as Strong

by BeautifullyLovely



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:59:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5700991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifullyLovely/pseuds/BeautifullyLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a moment in every child's life where they realize their parents are not perfect, but that does not mean that they don't love them all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heal Twice as Strong

Magnus frowned at the television, his eyebrow raised in affronted disbelief. “So this man--”

“His name is Ultimate Man, Dad.”

Magnus waved a hand, his rings gleaming under the lamplight. They were a multi-colored sheen, extravagant.

Uncle Simon would sometimes make comments about his dad’s wardrobe, eyeing it warily, as if Magnus’ clothes might one day attack. It was true that whenever Max took the extra second to glance at his arm or one of his shirts, glitter shards clung on like little soldiers, unwilling to give up the ghost and fall to the ground. Alec complained about it sometimes, little comments here and there to fill the comfortable silences of an average day, part of the makeup of his and Magnus’ easy bickering. Max sometimes joined in on his dad’s side, Magnus pouting at them as he was taken on, two-to-one.

In all realness, Max didn’t mind looking down to find a speck of shimmer, or sweeping his eyes across the room and finding that one body that seemed to hold more color than the others. It was comforting, knowing that if they were somehow separated it would be easy to find each other. His dad’s back--a bright red jacket, gleaming chain around the nape of his neck--Max staring upward, keeping it in his sight against the wash of gray bodies in the crowd. It was the same feeling he got when he would wrap himself in Alec’s hoodies at six years old. Relaxing. Anxiety-reducing.

“So Ultimate Man is supposedly a warlock.” Magnus said, directing the comment at Max.

Max huffed. “Dad, I told you this already.”

“But if he is a warlock, then why doesn’t he transport them to the Queen’s lair?”

“Because he can’t.” Max said. He was getting red around the ears, intent on defending his favorite character. “Ultimate man can turn into any animal in the world.” He boasted.

Magnus thought about this for a second, his head tilting. The lines of his face moved out of the lamplight, half of it dipped in shadow. “Hmm,” He said, a finger rubbing at his chin. “I’m not sure how I feel about a warlock who can’t use a portal.”

Max knew this well. One of the first things his dad had taught him was how to teleport to the ice cream parlor. “It’s not the same.” He insisted. “Ultimate Man was born in Everland.” Magnus himself was, by his own admission, born in a small town in Indonesia. Alec had bought Max a map years ago, helpfully pointing out the country with patient fingers. “It only takes him seconds to transform.” He added.

“Well,” Magnus said, eyeing the program with a different light. Ultimate Man was fighting off a group of rabid demons, intent on protecting his friends. “That certainly changes everything.”

Max nodded a head, glad that the issue was settled.

They watched the end on the episode, sprawled out in the semi-darkness of the room. The clock on the wall read ten-o-five, and Magnus roused him from the couch for bed. Max asked Magnus his thoughts on the Aqua Girl plot line while walking to the stairs, and Magnus told him.

Alec would always listen intently to Max when he talked about his favorite comic characters and tv shows, buying him books that he wanted and taping episodes on their TV. That was about as far as his interest held, however, finding more worth in battle training and quiet outdoor events.

Alec had reluctantly allowed Max to fight Uncle Jace with a blade after Magnus had magic-proofed it, joining in when it became a free-for-all dash around the yard. Magnus had set himself up on a lawn chair, book in hand and sunglasses firmly pressed to the bridge of his nose, an honorary member of the festivities even as he stayed comfortable at the sidelines. Uncle Jace had said something about him being the princess in need of saving, and Dad had agreed willingly enough, giving Alec a look Max could not fully interpret and asking if his knight would be decked in black instead of the traditional white, turning Uncle Jace’s joke into his own as Dad stuttered out a brilliant smile.

Jace had rolled his eyes, saying something about “lovey-dovey this” and “could you guys maybe try to turn it down a bit, I think I heard cupid crying softly from the heavens”. Alec had only given a pointed look at Aunt Clary, who was at that point burrowed into the lining of Jace’s side, two puzzle pieces fitting together. Jace had coughed a short cough, his chin sticking out, while Clary buried a smile into her jacket sleeve.

Thinking about Uncle Jace made Max press his lips together, uncomfortable. Some of Max’s friends at the academy had parents who were divorced. Sophie complained of never getting to see her father, who took hunts seriously and only visited her on the weekends. Miguel rolled his eyes as he mentioned the new lover his mother had taken that month in a desperate attempt to one-up his father's twenty-year old wife.

“Dad?” Max asked, bed covers around his grip. Magnus was halfway out the door, and he turned expectedly at the call. “Can I ask you something?”

If there was a time to ask, it was now. Alec was out on a hunt with Jace, and they wouldn’t be back before tomorrow. Max knew this because Alec had told him, but he also knew it because he had overheard Alec tell Magnus last Monday, watching as Magnus’ eyes shined in a way Max had never witnessed as he told him to be safe, to please be safe.

“What is it?” Magnus said, coming to sit at the end of Max’s bed. The sheets were a primary blue, clean and adult, after Max had bargained for new ones by saying that the previous patterns were too childish. Magnus and Alec had agreed, saying they’d swap them out if Max bothered to make his bed every morning before breakfast. Max was still trying to learn the spell that would tidy them up for him, but Alec had kept Magnus annoyingly tightlipped.

“Was it true, what Aunt Izzy said?”

Magnus’ brow crinkled, a small little furrow of confusion. “What did she say?” He set a hand around Max’s ankle. Max would usually pretend to playfully kick it off, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he left the warm touch to stay.

“It was when we were at her house with Michela last week.” Michela being Isabelle and Uncle Simon’s daughter. She was a lot younger than Max, still playing with little kid toys and throwing unnecessary fits. Max took on the important task of taking her under a wing, telling her what she needed to do to grow up faster and protecting her from spilling onto the hardwood when she took a bad turn and slipped on the kitchen rug. Isabelle had hugged him and told him he would grow to be just like Alec, pride in her smile. “I don’t think I was supposed to have heard.”

The adults had been situated on the couch in the family room, doing boring old people things like talking about this and that and drinking wine, which Alec and Magnus had told Max specifically never to do, keeping it locked tight in their kitchen cabinet. Max was in the playroom with Michela, trying out one of Simon’s new video games as Michela colored a mermaid’s tail bright orange and pink.

After Max had entered into one of the game’s many darkened caves, Michela had looked to him plaintively over one of the coloring book’s pages. Her lower lip stuck out in a clear attempt at producing puppydog eyes. “I want a popsicle.” Her expression clearly implied that Max should be the one to get it for her.

“Can’t you get your own popsicle?” Max asked. If Michela was going to be more grown up, then she should at least be able to get her own snacks.

“It’s too tall.” She complained. Max guessed that this must be true, Michela’s little legs too short to make her reach long enough to excess the freezer’s top shelf.

“Fine,” He said, setting the game controler on the ground and getting to his feet. “But I expect to be payed in favors.” His dad didn’t break curses for nothing, after all.

He wasn’t supposed to get snacks, having already eaten dessert with the family, but the adults were deep in conversation and had no reason to look over a shoulder.

As he was exiting the kitchen, popsicle in hand, he heard a wet snort come from the family room. It startled him horribly, and the treat he had so bravely commandeered for Michela almost slipped through his fingers. Curious, he poked a head around the kitchen door, listening for whatever had caused the noise.

“Please Alec,” Aunt Isabelle said, sarcasm dripping from her lips. “As if you didn’t have a crush on Jace as wide as the Atlantic when you were his age.”

Alec started arguing the point, Isabelle smiling as they traded volleys back and forth, but Max was frozen. _His Dad?_ His dad and _Uncle Jace?_ A messy current swept through him, bloating his insides. The absolute wrongness of the statement, of his dad loving anyone other than Magnus, was a hot poker to the side.

He felt strange about it, after, looking at Jace and Alec when they were together. “Wouldn’t it be romantic,” Selvie said in class, her hands clasped to her chest. “Two parabatai married? They would know everything about each other.” Max snapped at her, almost unconsciously, and Selvie had looked at him with hurt eyes.

In the darkness of the bedroom, with only Dad for company and on the verge of sleep, it seemed easier to release what was plaguing his mind.

“Jace and your father?” Magnus asked. His face was careful, as if he didn’t know how much to reveal, and Max hated that, hated that he could tell. He wished he could go back to a place of not knowing.

He nodded.

“Yes,” Magnus said, having come to a decision. “Your father cared for him that way in his youth.”

The way he said it made it plain, as if he could take the startling revelation and turn it insignificant with his words. Max had always liked how his dad talked, the way he could weave bedtime stories out of thin air and thoughts, his ability to pull a witty joke with nothing but a single sentence. He had never thought to think that Magnus could ever hide behind his words, not until now.

“Did he love him?” Max asked. He asked even as he dreaded the answer.

Magnus blinked, then ran a hand through his hair. Max took that as a yes. He didn’t want to give Dad any more time to speak for fear of what would come out of his mouth. “But he loves you now, right?”

He felt defensive on Magnus’ behalf. He loved Uncle Jace, but there was something wrong with the idea of his parents not together as two parts of a whole. They were meant to be, Max knew this ever since he had learned that Dad met Magnus at seventeen and never looked back.

Did he look back? Max didn’t know what was anymore.

Magnus rubbed a thumb on Max’s ankle, a calming gesture. He was clearly worried about Max, about the way his son’s face was a work of confusion and hurt, but as he said, “Yes, Max, he loves me.” A soft smile broke across his mouth, a secret smile that Max hadn’t seen before but instantly made his worries lessen. Whatever the past, whatever he had been shielded from, his dad couldn’t hide this. Couldn’t hide his happiness at speaking of the man his was wed to, the words confident from his mouth: He loves me, he loves me.

So it was OK, they were alright after all.

“I still don’t get it.” Max said. His worries were smaller, but his worldview cracked. He wasn’t sure if he could look at Alec the same, knowing that he had once looked at Jace the way he now looked at Dad, all glowing and joyous. He wasn’t sure if he could look at Magnus the same, either, knowing that he knew of Alec’s infatuation as his relationship with him began.

It was hard to think. His parents might not be who they portrayed, a bit more vulnerable and imperfect than Max was ever expecting.

“I don’t want you to worry.” Magnus said, brushing the bed sheets so they laid flat. “It isn’t for you to worry about anyway.”

“Of course I’ll worry.” Max said, angry. “You’re my parents.”

Magnus’ lids lifted, not shocked but surprised. Max couldn’t know that he was thinking backward: to Isabelle, her voice clear as she said: “Of course he loves me, I’m his sister.” Unconditional love. He had it in spades for Max, but hadn’t expected it in return. Wasn’t sure he wanted it if it would ever come to hurt his son. _I must be careful._ Magnus thought. _I must be careful with this._

Max couldn’t know this, but he expected maybe there was more to his dad than he had previously believed. More to Dad, too, and if so, then more to Aunt Isabelle and Aunt Clary, more to Uncle Simon and Uncle Jace. More to everyone. He took this in with bittersweet realization.

“I love you.” He said. It was the most true thing he could think the say. Magnus moved to hug him, and if the world had just gotten a little more confusing, then at least the smell of his dad’s shirt and the warmth of him was the same as always.

“I love you too.” Magnus said. “And so does your dad. So do your aunts and uncles and your grandparents and your friends. You are loved, Max Lightwood, and don’t ever forget that.”

“I won’t.” Max said, leaning into his dad’s arms. He didn’t think he could forget, despite the new fragility of everything else.

He went to sleep that night and dreamed of things he had never seen before, wonderful and scary things all in one; and how fascinating was that, that they could be both at the same time?

He was woken in the morning, sun bright against his pillowcase, by his dad’s hand on his shoulder. “Your father’s home.” And he looked so happy at that, and Max knew they were feeling the same unbearable lightness at his return.

Alec hugged Max tight the minute he saw him, the scratch of his hoodie a balm. “Love you.” Max said, despite feeling too old for such emotional bursts, his arms tight around his dad’s waist. Alec repeated the phrase, and in his repetition he made the stale and overused words as new as if they had never before been spoken.

After Max let go, Alec turned to Magnus, and their gazes locked.

“I missed you.” Alec offered, blunt in the way he sometimes was. And it was an offer, Max found. Something to be affirmed again and again. Max recalled hearing of people renewing their wedding vows, something he had thought of as unnecessary and used only for selfish purposes--parties, recognition, a self-congratulatory pat on the back, and suddenly understood the practice more than he had before.

Max knew from a young age that he was adopted, but always felt like Alec and Magnus were his, no matter what their beginning was, or what his classmates, prejudice flowing from their elders to them, had to say about it. He was suddenly confronted with the fact that his parents hadn’t been given him, but had picked him for themselves, wanting him just that much.

“And I missed you.” Magnus offered in return, and they grinned at each other, twin images cut in the same stone.

Max looked at them, his chosen family, and felt his own smile slot slowly into place, his eyes wiser and just a touch sad.

Whatever their future problems, he thought, together they would weather the storm.


End file.
